It is known to use so-called shaving gears for precision working of gears, which shaving gears have grooves extending from the top to the bottom in the tooth surfaces and forming cutting edges. Tool and workpiece roll on one another with crossed axes, from which results a sliding of the one tooth surface relative to the counter surface in the axial direction of the tooth. The longitudinally sliding cutting edges remove chips. In the so-called plunge cut shaving there occurs, in contrast to all other shaving methods, no further longitudinal feed, so that the axial sliding caused by the crossed axes is the only longitudinal movement. In order that the cutting effect is distributed onto the entire axial length of the workpiece teeth, the cutting edges are arranged in a staggered manner on the successive tool teeth.